


Reflection

by RiYuYami



Series: Lateralus [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Non-canon events in a somewhat-canon story, Original Mystery Twins, Side-story to Parabola, Stan being a secret softy for the twins, Stan's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-19
Updated: 2015-03-19
Packaged: 2018-03-18 13:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3570992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiYuYami/pseuds/RiYuYami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can’t say you were pleased with the idea of babysitting your great niece and nephew for the summer, but when you met them… well… they remind you so much of what you’ve been wanting for so long.</p><p>EDIT: Fixed the Stan bros' names to the correct ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to turn Parabola into a series (under the name Lateralus, the title of the Tool album that has the songs Parabola and Reflection in it). 
> 
> This is Grunkle Stan centered, because he’s my favorite character and I wanted to write something through his perspective. I mean, holy crap, I love most of the characters equally, but Stan is my favorite, he won me over with his fishing hats for the twins.
> 
> Also, headcanon stuff in here, like my headcanon that Dipper and Mabel only have four fingers on each hand.
> 
> EDIT: I changed a lot of shit in this, the original is still saved in a file on my computer, but this posted one is changed slightly to fit more with the canon universe (except I am totally keeping Mystery Trio as a thing for the Lateralus series)

When your nephew gave you a call back in May, you almost hung up on him.

You haven’t seen or spoken to him much in almost thirteen years; you don’t even know how he got your number. He asked you if you could babysit his kids for the summer, get them out of California and let them see the ‘forgotten town you decided to actually squalor in’. He had the fucking nerve to insult you for keeping a distance; you didn’t want to hurt what was left of your family.

You told him no, he pleaded, again, no. Then he bribed you, and you are a sucker for money. People think you’re greedy, but you’re really not all that much. You need the money for parts, research, intel, anything you can buy to help you with your search and repairs. Though it is nice to have a lot of money, heh. 

To be honest, you haven’t seen your great niece and nephew in years, not since the day they were born. You had been informed by their mother, sweet gal, can’t believe she married that guy. How are you two even related? You arrived in California a few days before the twins were born; you had to stay at a hotel because your nephew didn’t want you at his house.

You arrived at the hospital when you got a call from him, saying that you might as well see them since you made the trip.

When you stepped into their mom’s hospital room, you found two babies in some kinda double bassinet thing. There was a little girl with a lot of hair already on her head, and a little boy who has that same red thing going on with his nose that you and Stanford have. How did your little brother Shermie not end up with that? Probably got his looks from Mom.

You remember looking at the boy with the oddly specific birthmark on his head and wondered if Stanford looked like that as a baby. There was something about the boy that reminded you of your brother, and it hurt.

The little girl sorta reminded you of yourself, especially cause she was the cuter twin (ha!) and she threw her hat off her head, hitting her brother in the face. You laughed a little, that was cute, girl’s gotta lotta spunk in her. Total Pines material.

You haven’t seen the kids since that day, your nephew didn’t want you seeing them, saying you’d be a bad influence. So even though he said that, he is calling you and asking you to watch them for the summer. You give in for the money, but you’re scared for them. You don’t know what to expect, you’re terrible with kids, and twins make you nervous.

Standing at the bus stop, you wait for the twins to arrive. You decided it would be wise for you to be the one to pick them up, though you feel like it was a bad idea to leave Soos and Wendy in charge of the shack. You hope to whoever is up there that those little shits don’t fuck things up.  
  
The 618 bus arrives and only two people get off. The first one off is a young girl in a huge, knitted sweater with some sorta design on it. Her hair goes way down her back and she’s got a smile full of braces. She reminds you of you at that age, when you were smiling and had a mouth full of metal and brown eyes full of hope rather then despair and regret.  
  
She runs up to you, still smiling, suitcases in hand and stuffed animals under her arms. “Hi! I’m your great niece, Mabel!” She says happily, as if there was nothing wrong in her world.  
  
“Yeah, hey there kiddo.” You pat her on the head and she giggles a little.  
  
“Oh, you’re our great uncle?” You look over, seeing a boy a few feet away. You feel a pain in your chest at the sight of the boy. He looks so much like Stanford, if he wore glasses, his nose was a little bigger, and he had freckles, he’d look identical to him. The kid was looking at you with curious, uneasy eyes; Ford had the same look on his face often.

You nod, remembering his question. “Yeah, I’m you’re great uncle Stan!” You announce, putting on your showman act. “You must be Dipdop.”  
  
“Dipper, actually.” He frowns, adjusting the hat on his head.  
  
“Right, okay kids, into my car.” You grab some of their luggage for them, throwing it into the trunk of your car when you get to it.  
  
Dipper and Mabel climb into the backseat and you get in, driving away from the bus stop. Taking a glance back at them, you see that Mabel is practically bouncing in her seat while Dipper is quietly sitting still, looking out the window.  
  
You notice their hands though, you don’t really remember them being born with eight fingers (they had those little baby gloves on, what do they even need those for?), but… there they are. Stanley had twelve fingers; it was how most people told you apart as kids. Poor kids, it must be rough, your brother had it rough, until he took up boxing with you. He was still weaker then you, but he could put up a fight.

Uhg, you need to stop thinking about Stanford, it’s not good for you.

Ten minutes pass and you’re at the Mystery Shack.  
  
“What’s this place?” Dipper asks as you park the car.  
  
“Your home away from home for the summer, this is my place of business and my house.” You tell him as you get out.  
  
Mabel jumps out of the car, looking excited. “What’s a Mystery Shack? Is it like one of those road side attractions?” Smart kid, she figured that one out quickly.  
  
“Right you are, kid. I bring people in with oddities and creepy things from around this town and junk, brings in the money.” You smirk, getting their bags out.  
  
“So it’s a tourist trap.” Dipper points out, he's quick too.   
  
“Exactly, now let’s get your shi-stuff up to your room.”

You take the kids inside, you don’t see Wendy at the counter, but Soos is restocking. At least someone is doing their job around here. You take the kids through the house, giving them a very brief tour, before taking them up to your attic.

There is a room they could stay in downstairs, but… you haven’t really been in there for thirty years and you don’t wanna go in now. The attic will work just fine, you even got them beds to use. “Here it is, your room.” You say, opening the door and dropping their stuff on the floor.  
  
Dipper wanders in first. “It’s a little small.”

“Sorry kid, ain’t got anymore bedrooms. Unless if you wanna sleep in the den, but I don’t recommend it.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“Cause I like to watch late night TV down there in my underwear.” He makes a face at that and Mabel makes a gross-out sound. You roll your eyes, kids, uhg. “Well there you go, you get to live up here. It’s not bad, I had Soos clean it up. He’s that man-child down in the shop.”  
  
You give the kids a rundown of the rules around here before leaving them to do whatever in their room. You walk down into your room and sigh, going over to your dresser and pull out a framed picture.

It’s old, faded, and torn in a corner, but it’s precious to you. It’s of Stanford and you back in New Jersey. It was your birthdays and you wanted to go to the beach, your mom took a picture of you and your twin. You’re both at your favorite playground, on the swings.

You sigh and put the picture away, better go check on the shop.

You find Dipper and Mabel in the gift shop, walking up to your two employees. Mabel introduces herself and Dipper to Soos who looks at them a bit confused. You notice that he’s looking at Mabel’s outstretched hand, at her four fingers.

Soos, if you dare to insult these kids for that…

“Whoa dude! That is so cool!” He says, surprising you and the kids as he grabs Dipper and Mabel’s hands, looking at them. “You have eight fingers each! Haha, wow, you are like mutants, are you part of the Z-Men or something?” He asks in all seriousness, good giant-man-child.

Mabel laughs a bit. “No, but wouldn’t that be awesome?! I’d like to have the power to fly or control the weather! Ooh! Or even have silverware come out of my hands!”  
  
“Haha, yeah! Man, I’d love to have that! You are so lucky.”  
  
Dipper chuckles and notices Wendy walk over, taking one of his hands. You watch him blush at this. “Whoa, cool you do have four fingers. That’s so awesome, man.” She smiles, giving him a fist bump. Dipper laughs nervously and introduces himself to her at this, sort of making an ass out of himself, but Wendy doesn’t seem to mind.  
  
You have good employees, even if one is gullible and the other is lazy. You know they will keep the kids safe.

\--

You have developed a connection with the kids; they grew on you pretty quickly, especially after the fishing trip. You’ve gotten to know them better over the days since they have arrived.

Mabel is very outgoing, and also very loud. When she has an idea and a plan, she gets right down to work with it, just like a certain handsome con man that you know well, hehe. She’s also very artistic. You were surprised to find out that she knits her own sweaters, and she has a lot of them, pretty much one for any occasion.

You were even more shocked by how fast she was at making things, she made a wax sculpture of you in just a day, it was amazing. And very, very detailed, it almost looked real. It was… actually really nice to see an almost identical face that wasn’t a photo or reflection.

Your great niece is very sweet and a little on the odd side, but that was right by you. You wouldn’t want her to be anything different. Though you wish that she’d keep a better eye on her damn pig, he likes to eat things he’s not suppose to.

Dipper is a wimp, but that’s okay, he seems to have a good heart and a sharp mind (for the most part on the latter, he’s still a kid after all.) He’s smart and quick-witted, but socially awkward. Similar to you when you were a kid, makes you wonder if he’s gotten picked on at school. You might need to teach him some of your moves.

He is quiet compared to his sister and tends to be nosy, VERY nosy. He is also funny and tries hard at what he does, even if he sucks at it. Stanford was the same as a kid, especially when he went looking for things that interested him. Dipper also seems to have an interest in the paranormal, which you don’t like, that reminds you WAY too much of your twin and you really don’t want to see Dipper end up like him.

The last thing you want to do is lose another important person in your life. Dipper and Mabel had grown on you too much for you to think little of them. You act like a jerk to them, ignoring Mabel’s weird antics and putting Dipper to work, but it’s because you try not to be soft with them.

When you’re soft on someone, they get hurt.

Stanford and Fiddleford are good examples.

Soos has gotten too close, he looks up to you, thinks you can’t do anything wrong in his eyes. Wendy’s starting to become close to you too, you worry about her, she had trouble with her family and though she acts all lay back and teenager-y, she’s stressed out. You’re not stupid; you notice things, even if your eyes have gotten shitty over the years.

But those kids, they’ve got a special place in your old, black heart and they love you, even though Mabel shows it more than her brother.

You would rather die then let anything bad happen to them, but you worry, what if you finish the machine while they’re still here? What will happen? Those kids seem to get themselves into sticky situations a lot, coming home with cuts and bruises, sometimes looking like they saw something in the woods they’d like to forget.

Could they be…?

No, no, you’ve been doing your best to keep things secret, you can’t have them get involved or get hurt. Those kids are your world, the only family that even gives a damn about you anymore.

They should grow up with a normal life, something you’ve always craved. 

\--

Sitting in Soos’ home, watching the kids sleep on the couch with you on the floor, makes you feel like shit.

You should have protected that deed better, freakin’ brat Gideon just up and took it (after blowing up the safe and part of your house). Now look where you are, the kids have no home for the summer, you have no home in general and no job. You ruined their summer and your life.

And your chance to get your brother back.

You feel like it started with that insane dream. You haven’t dreamt of Bill Cipher in almost three decades, hell, you haven’t seen him in this realm since that horrible day. But you heard him in your head, hell; you even think you heard the kids and Soos.

Did Bill do something? You have a feeling he did; your mark was hurting after you woke up. With a sigh, you get up off the floor and walk outside of the house, going to sit outside to think. It’s times like this that make you wish you hadn’t given up smoking and drinking.

You run a hand through your hair, sighing again, only to twitch at the sound of the door opening. “Grunkle Stan…?” You turn to look at Mabel, rubbing at her eyes, looking so sleepy.  
  
“Mabel, sweetie, what are you doin’ up?” You ask quietly as she sits down next to you.  
  
“I heard you get up, you okay?” She yawns, she’s half asleep, she needs to go back to bed.  
  
“Yeah, uh… just thinkin’ and stuff.” You twitch when she leans on you, snuggling up. “Go back to bed.”

Mabel shakes her head, curling up a bit. “No…”  
  
“You’re tired.”  
  
“You’re tired too.”  
  
Touché. You sigh, petting her messy hair. “How’s about I tell you a story, ya wanna hear one?” The smile on her face means yes.  
  
“It’s a story about two brothers, a set of twins.”  
  
“What are their names?” She asks, yawning again.  
  
“Uhh… Ford and Lee. Now, you see, they were two kids who grew up together with just their dad. Ford and Lee were different from a lot of the other kids at school, Lee had trouble with bullies, but Ford had it worse cause there was somethin’ wrong with him.”

You pause and shake your head. “No, there ain’t nothin’ wrong with him, he was just born a little different. Because he got picked on for being different, Lee tired to protect him, making his own bullying worse. Their dad tried to toughen them up and it worked for Lee, but Ford had trouble still.

“Lee always protected his brother, came with being the cooler twin, heh. He had to keep a close eye on Ford when they got older.”  
  
“Why?” She asks softly as you continue to pet her hair, your fingers getting caught a few times in some knots.

“Because he took up an interest in strange things, things that he felt connected to and that he wanted to explore. He was a lot like your brother, getting’ into business that he shouldn’t be gettin’ into. Ford made a career out of it, traveled around a bit, before settling in a small town to study it. And wouldn’t ya know it, Lee went with him to make sure he was safe.”  
  
“Soon Ford learned to take on dangerous situations on his own, even learning to fight. Lee was proud of him, until Ford got into a situation that he couldn’t get out of.” You tense up, thinking about Bill, about the portal, about your last moments with your brother.  
  
Mabel shifts, frowning. “What happened to Ford?”  
  
You’re quiet. “He… He uh… He made a deal with a bad man who tricked him and took him away to another land, somewhere Lee couldn’t get to him. But, uh, Lee went out and found him, using special clues and a machine to find him! Because Lee couldn’t lose the most important person in the world to him, he had to get Ford back, no matter the cost.”  
  
You stop petting her hair. “Ford is safe, Lee got him. He brought him home and promised to protect him. Mabel, sweetie, I want you to be the Lee, Dipper is your Ford. Please protect your brother, he will do things that will get him into bad situations, but you gotta put fate into those who are doing things for the ones they love. You gotta trust and protect those who love you and those you love.”  
  
She lets out a soft sound, making you look down at her. She’s starting to fall asleep; she probably didn’t hear a word you said. You carefully pick her up and bring her back inside, laying her down next to her brother. “Be the Stanley to your Stanford, kiddo…” You say softly before going to lie down and try to sleep.

\--

Dipper had the third journal, you had no idea, you should have known. He knows too much about Gravity Falls, it explains so much.

Mabel mentioned in her story when you were all falling in the Bottomless Pit that she had found the truth teeth when she looked in a special book. That book was the journal, again, you should have known.

They… they can’t have it back, but they need it, they’ve gotten too involved in this town, its secrets, its faults.

But they can never know about your own.

\--

You have made your great niece cry and it’s tearing you up inside, you wish you never had to see her cry, you wish you weren’t the reason for the tears.

“Mable, please!” You are begging her to not push the button, even though you know she has no right to trust you anymore. You just pray that she remembered your story, figured out that Ford and Lee are you and your brother, the brother you need to save.

“Grunkle Stan…” She has her hand above the button, you think your heart is gonna stop.

“I trust you…” She lets go of the button stand and the counter ends. You hear Dipper scream just as a blinding light picks up, blocking out the world around you.

The gravity in the room is disrupted; physics don’t mean shit in these precious seconds as you float around with Soos and the twins. Time feels like it has stopped, that there’s no air in the room, that you are nothing and everything at once. That you are the twelve year old boy you were so long ago, hearing your brother tell you that he wanted to run away and explore the world, find strange things like himself.

And then all at once the universe returns and you’re lying on the ground, the portal is broken and part of you feels like you have failed. You thought you did everything correctly but it turns out… wait!

Something… or someone is coming out of the portal…

You watch the figure step out of the broken portal, walking over the debris and reach down, picking up the fallen first journal with a hand with one extra digit on it.

You hear Dipper ask who that is. You tell him the truth, you tell him that this is the author of the journals, your brother.

Stanley Pines, their great uncle.

_“Ford is safe, Lee got him. He brought him home and promised to protect him…”_

END

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t know how to end this, but I really do believe that Stan would look out for the kids, even if he doesn’t always show it. He’s actually really nice to them when you think about it. He let them take something from the shop for free, he goes through with Mabel’s crazy ideas, he wants Dipper to stand up for himself and he even offered to hang out with him after Wendy got mad at him. Stan is a good guy, he’s just got a dark past. 
> 
> And let’s be honest, the fandom has basically pointed out the parallels between the original Mystery Twins and the new Mystery Twins. Mable and Stan as very similar, which I pointed out, and they share certain ideas on how things need to be done. Plus, I feel like Mabel is closer to Stan then Dipper is. Dipper and Stanford would probably be two sides of the same coin; they seem so similar to one another. 
> 
> But we don’t know much on Stanford outside of what he’s written in the journals and tiny hints seen throughout the show.


End file.
